Sauk Prairie Healthcare Credits Collaboration with Community and Business Partners for Hero Award

Sauk Prairie Healthcare was recently recognized by the Sauk Prairie Chamber of Commerce with the 2021 Hero Award. The award recognizes and honors an organization or individual who provided critical response to the global pandemic. The nominee finalists demonstrated creative and innovative approaches while ensuring safety was maintained within operations.

“We are humbled and truly honored by the Hero award, realizing that every nominee deserves this recognition,” said Shawn Lerch, CEO of Sauk Prairie Healthcare. “The Hero award represents the gargantuan efforts taken by an extraordinary team whose sole purpose was to educate, protect, and serve our communities. The pandemic challenged each and every one of us, our families, our neighbors, our businesses, and our communities. I could not be more proud how this incredible and passionate team came together in the face of a global pandemic, ensuring we maintained our commitment to provide safe, high quality care in a personalized and compassionate manner.”

Lerch feels strongly that Sauk Prairie Healthcare was only able to successfully serve its mission and duty to our communities because of the incredible collaboration with community and business partners over the last 18 months. The list is long but a few examples include: businesses providing additional PPE; restaurants supporting team members with food; community groups who sewed thousands of the masks; philanthropic support for equipment; distilled spirits to make hand sanitizer; community coordination of large-scale COVID-19 testing and vaccination clinics; unified messaging campaigns focused on WE not ME and virus prevention education; and strong communication and coordination between first responders, healthcare partners, and school districts.

“To be clear, the pandemic is not yet over,” Lerch reminds. “But know that our communities are safer, stronger, and are positioned to recover quickly because of the massive efforts by the extraordinary people who make our community truly special.”

Pictured: Representing Sauk Prairie Healthcare when the Sauk Prairie Area Chamber of Commerce presented the Hero Award are: Rick Sauer, Shawn Lerch, Kris Knutson, Monica Pilon, Julie Gorman, Dr. Wendy Ledesma, Adam Lobner, Matthew Garvin and Roberto Ledesma.